April 2010 - Mental Health Update

Parenting programmes - are they a long-term solution?

Parenting programmes like The Incredible Years have been proven to have good short-term effects but little research has been done into their long-term effectiveness or into what makes them effective, or not, in children diagnosed with 'conduct disorder'...

Published Tue, Apr 27 2010 4:10 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Child Development, Parenting, Incredible Years

What makes for a happy (very) old age?

Most developed countries have an aging population but what makes for a happy old age? People in Georgia, in the former Soviet Union, are known to live to a ripe old age and researchers from Iowa State University have been studying 158 centenarians there...

Published Fri, Apr 23 2010 4:51 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Depression, Older People

Research shows true cost of caring

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University and the Benjamin Rose Institute in Cleveland, Ohio have been looking into the toll taken on people looking after someone with dementia, and their findings do not make cheerful reading. The study of 67 caregivers...

Published Fri, Apr 23 2010 4:31 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Alzheimer's Disease, Service Users' Families

Long road back to normality for borderline sufferers

Building a good social life and holding down a job can be tough for people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) even when their symptoms have disappeared. Mary Zanarini from McLean Hospital in Massachusetts followed 290 people with BPD over a decade...

Published Fri, Apr 23 2010 4:11 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Borderline Personality Disorder

Losing parents and children's mental health

Children who lose a parent to suicide are more likely to commit suicide themselves and are also at a greater risk of other mental-health problems. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore looked at suicides, psychiatric hospitalisations...

Published Fri, Apr 23 2010 3:37 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Child Development, Suicide, Bereavement

New gene linked to Alzheimer's risk

Researchers from the University of Miami have identified a new gene associated with an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. In a study of 5,376 people, 2,269 of whom had Alzheimer's disease, the researchers compared a stretch of genes...

Published Thu, Apr 22 2010 7:34 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Alzheimer's Disease, Genetics

Smoking and depression go together like bacon and eggs

In the U.S. the National Center for Health Statistics has been analyzing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to look into the links between depression and smoking. They found that 43% of adult smokers aged 20 and over have depression...

Published Thu, Apr 22 2010 7:10 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Depression, Smoking

Anticonvulsants and suicide risk

Certain anticonvulsant drugs could be associated with an increased risk of suicide, attempted suicide or violent death. Anticonvulsants are used to help people with epilepsy but can also be prescribed for bipolar disorder, mania, neuralgia, migraine and...

Published Thu, Apr 22 2010 6:41 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Suicide, Anticonvulsants

Omega 3s not a miracle solution for older people's cognition

Along with statins and aspirin omega-3s seem to be touted as the miracle cure for just about everything. However, a trial by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has found no evidence that it can improve cognition in older...

Published Thu, Apr 22 2010 6:22 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Omega-3, Older People, Cognition

Why bottling up anger could be the way to an early grave

People with heart disease who bottle up their anger are at nearly three times the risk of having a heart attack or dying over the next 5-10 years. Researchers from Tilburg University in the Netherlands looked into the influence of type D personality in...

Published Thu, Apr 22 2010 3:56 AM by Mental Health Update

Britain leads the way - in binge drinking

British people are the biggest binge drinkers in Europe. Polling company Eurobarometer surveyed 18,000 people across Europe and found that although British people were not the most frequent drinkers they did drink the most at a single sitting with 12...

Published Thu, Apr 22 2010 3:26 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Alcohol Problems

What makes a 21st turn tipsy?

The legal age for drinking in the U.S. is 21 and there has been quite a lot of coverage of people dying as a result of excessive drinking on their 21st birthday. Researchers from the University of Texas, at Austin studied 150 college students asking them...

Published Thu, Apr 22 2010 2:32 AM by Mental Health Update

Alcohol consumption in older people

Most studies into how people drink over their lifetimes have found that consumption peaks in early adulthood and declines later but little is known about individual's drinking patterns and what factors make people drink less or more as they age. Researchers...

Published Thu, Apr 22 2010 2:13 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Alcohol Problems

Sleep disorders take greater toll in non-White groups

Sleep disorders could take a greater toll on people's quality of life and health among Black and Hispanic people than in White people. Researchers from Arizona State University used data from the Sleep Heart Health Study covering a total of 5,237...

Published Wed, Apr 21 2010 8:17 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Sleep Disorders

French study exposes the myth of multi-tasking

Employers and management gurus often speak of the benefits of multi-tasking but a new study by Dr Etienne Koechlin of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris suggests that the human brain might only be designed to do two tasks at once. The study used imaging...

Published Wed, Apr 21 2010 7:43 AM by Mental Health Update